Hi. I am a 20(21 next month) year old male with no real history of problems in this area. Recently I've been experiencing kind of a burning/stinging pain whenever I have a bowel movement. I've been assuming that it was just a hemmorhoid and haven't worried about it. The past few days this has been accompanied by abdominal pain(lower left side just to the left of my bellybutton, sprroadic also, it hurts for hours at a time, goes away, and will come back for anywhere from 5 minutes to several hours) and I've been tired all day every day for the past week or so whether I get 1 hour of sleep or 8 hours of sleep. Today I noticed a bright red in my stool. The water had also taken on a reddish tint. I've also been experiencing a lot of constipation over the past few weeks(2-4 days between movements at its worst) with some days where I can't go 20 minutes without having to run to the washroom in between. The constipation has however disappeared over the past week.

Should I be worried about anything here? I'm going to be making a doctor's appointment tomorrow but it could be a bit before the appointment.

Whenever there is rectal bleeding (or a GI bleed of any kind) there is some cause for healthy concern at least. What you describe, for the most part, sounds like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), which involves lower abdominal pain, bloating, and constipation interspersed with diarrhea. The exam scheduling is timely, and while there is probably no real urgent need to be seen, you shouldn't put this off or reschedule. If it takes a couple weeks to be seen, that should be OK, so long as you've alread learned to live with the symptoms.

The bleeding could actually have been due to a hemorrhoid, since these are often the result of straining at stool during periods of constipation. The lowerl left quadrant pain, however, is bothersome and you may be referred for a colonoscopy. If so, please don't hesitate to have it done. It's not a very memorable experience, although the prep the day and evening before can be annoying. Other than that it's really no big deal. Normally they aren't done routinely until after the age of 50, but just in case this is suggested, I wanted to ease your mind about it up front.

Most likely this is a combination of IBS and a hemorrhoid that bled, but it is definitely important to know for sure what's going on.